Distance education has emerged as a viable alternative educational
system for meeting educational needs of people at all levels in various societies. This is a suitable alternative method of education in the sense that it is capable of democratising education. Distance education is an efficient and effective tool in restructuring the economic base of most developing countries (Simone Testa and Gilles Nageon de Lestang, ICDE 1992). Distance education has been overwhelmingly used to meet higher educational needs and to train large numbers of people quickly and economically. This paper discusses the role and development of distance education in African countries in general and Botswana in particular.